1916 United States presidential election in Washington (state)

1916 United States presidential election in Washington (state)
Wilson 40-50% 50-60%	Hughes 40-50% 50-60%
President before election; Woodrow Wilson; Democratic	Elected President ; Woodrow Wilson; Democratic

The 1916 United States presidential election in Washington took place on November 2, 1920, as part of the 1916 United States presidential election in which all contemporary 48 states participated. Voters chose seven electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting Democratic incumbents Woodrow Wilson Thomas R. Marshall, against Republican challengers Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes and his running mate, former Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks.

Washington had been a one-party Republican bastion for twenty years before this election.^[1] Democratic representation in the Washington legislature would during this period at times be countable on one hand,^[2] and neither Alton B. Parker nor William Jennings Bryan in his third presidential run carried even one county in the state. Republican primaries had taken over as the chief mode of political competition when introduced in the late 1900s.^[3]

However, a powerful "peace vote" in the Western states^[4] due to opposition to participation in World War I, and the transfer of a considerable part of the substantial vote for Eugene Debs from the previous election to Wilson owing to such Progressive reforms as the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments^[5] allowed Woodrow Wilson to carry Washington by a 4.25 percentage point margin. In doing this, Wilson was the first ever Democratic victor in the Western Washington Puget Sound counties of Island, San Juan and Kitsap,^[6] and the only Democrat between 1904 and 1924 to carry any Washington county in a two-way presidential race.

^ Burnham, Walter Dean; ‘The System of 1896’, in Kleppner, Paul (editor), The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, pp. 176-179 ISBN 0313213798
^ Schattschneider, Elmer Eric; The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America, pp. 76-84 ISBN 0030133661
^ Murray, Keith; ‘Issues and Personalities of Pacific Northwest Politics, 1889-1950’, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3 (July 1950), pp. 213-233
^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 47 ISBN 0786422173
^ Sarasohn, David; 'The Election of 1916: Realigning the Rockies', Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 1980), pp. 285-305
^ Menendez, The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, p. 332

[1] Burnham, Walter Dean; ‘The System of 1896’, in Kleppner, Paul (editor), The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, pp. 176-179 ISBN 0313213798

[2] Schattschneider, Elmer Eric; The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America, pp. 76-84 ISBN 0030133661

[Issues-3] Murray, Keith; ‘Issues and Personalities of Pacific Northwest Politics, 1889-1950’, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3 (July 1950), pp. 213-233

[Geography-4] Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 47 ISBN 0786422173

[Election-5] Sarasohn, David; 'The Election of 1916: Realigning the Rockies', Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 1980), pp. 285-305

[6] Menendez, The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, p. 332

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